Siri may be destined for the desktop, as evidenced by an Apple job listing.

iOS device users generally have a love/hate relationship with Siri, Apple's virtual "personal assistant." There are plenty of screenshots floating around that highlight Siri's speech-recognition challenges, but there are also many times when Siri delivers the goods. Despite Siri's ongoing challenges, we've heard numerous Mac users say that they wish a service like that was built into OS X—making appointments and reminders is often just easier that way, but doing so on an iDevice isn't always practical when you're sitting right in front of a computer.

Apple may be listening. A recent job posting, highlighted first by AppleInsider, shows the company is looking to expand Siri's reach, but it doesn't specify iOS as it usually does. Instead, the listing mentions OS X under its key requirements, in addition to knowledge of Apple's development APIs and familiarity "with Unix, especially Mac OS X."

Unsurprisingly, this has led to speculation that Apple is looking to take Siri's capabilities to the desktop, developing it as "an entire miniature OS within the OS," according to Apple.

But aside from this tidbit of speculation, the job details aren't too surprising. Apple wants an engineer who can focus on Siri content that "appears within the conversational view"—not surprising, as Apple has been looking to make Siri into its own quirky personality that users can become attached to.

We asked Ars readers last March whether they use Siri on an iPhone 4S (then, the only device that supported Siri) and more than 50 percent said yes. Since then, Siri support has expanded out to include the iPhone 5, the fifth-gen iPod touch, the iPad 3 and 4, and iPad mini, so it's likely there are many more using of the software today. So we've got two polls: one for whether you use Siri at all, and one for whether you think you'd make use of it on the desktop.

Promoted Comments

Although Siri has its quirks, I do find it remarkable what does work with Siri.

Arguing that Siri would be useless on a desktop because one already has a keyboard is a hollow argument. Siri provides a different interface that abstracts away complex tasks or ones involving multiple steps so that they can be executed in a single query or command.

On a smartphone, that typically involves identifying and launching an app, running a search of some type and then filtering those search results.

When you say "Call John Doe" you are doing the equivalent of launching the Contacts app (alternatively, the Phone app and then the history tab) scrolling through the list of contacts, selecting John Doe and then filtering the option of call vs text.

When you ask "What delivers?", Siri is intelligent enough to figure out that:a. you want foodb. Siri needs to know you current locationc. A search needs to be run, finding restaurants in a given proximity to your location and then filtering those by which ones offer delivery services.

If I were to conduct the second example manually, I would typically have to launch Yelp or UrbanSpoon and navigate through several screens of information and sometimes use a separate map app in conjunction as Yelp's internal map interface leaves a lot to be desired. It's a lot of busy work that Siri effectively eliminates for me.

Having that on a desktop would be a boon to those who would take advantage of it. Most problems I've found with Siri can be rectified by better enunciation (I make sure to clearly sound out each syllable with similar emphasis) and taking a moment to think of how best to phrase the question beforehand. Siri can handle remarkably complex questions at times, so long as the grammar is something than can be logically parsed without ambiguity (the English language seems to have several self-defeating mechanisms in place in regards to being unambiguous).

Where I think Siri benefits is creating the ability to do tasks hands free. On a computer you are hands on by default, and seems to eliminate the benefits Siri offers, while still offering the frustrations that comes along with it.

Now, give me the Enterprise's computer, and I'll talk to that thing all day.

Why? For setting reminders, calendar events. That is what I find Siri useful for (and Google voice search, now that I'm on a Nexus 4 instead of an iPhone, in which I also used to to set alarms). It is much quicker to say "Remind me to do x at x" than to manually enter something in.

... Now, give me the Enterprise's computer, and I'll talk to that thing all day.

Indeed. In fact, if you view Siri as one of the many contenders to embrace the concept presented by the ships' computers in Star Trek, then it might not be a far stretch to argue that we'll all be using Siri on our computers... eventually.

Yup, Siri is exactly the type of voice recognition I'm looking for. I currently use Speech Recognition in OS X to type some things while I'm doing other stuff. I actually wrote this paragraph with speech recognition! It does wonders for your diction, and it's an exercise in thinking of what you want to say before you say it.

That said, writing with speech isn't the killer app; it's the tidbits. "Find all documents with OS X in the name... that I worked on in the last two weeks", "make an appointment with Brian to discuss script changes", and so on (this part I typed out... still haven't figured out how to get an ellipsis out of Siri/SR).

Anyway, yes, I would use the hell out of Siri on my Mac, and would prefer it sooner rather than later.

80% of the time, I use Siri for dialing. Telling Siri to "Call John Doe" is much easier that unlocking the phone, switching to spotlight, and typing the name. Finding restaurants or directions is quite useful as well, simply because finding the app and typing on the iPhone keyboard can be slow. Since my computer has a full keyboard and a million other shortcuts, I don't really see that I would have a use for it.

Also, from typing that comment, I'm realizing how lazy modern smartphones have enabled me to be.

I should clarify that I don't think Siri is quite up to the task yet. The voice recognition can be sketchy, and getting it to do specific tasks often requires you to rephrase your words until she "gets it". For a phone this is an acceptable sacrifice, as trying to input these tasks while on the go is likely to be even more frustrating. On a computer though, it's probably easier to input thing manually than to ask Siri to do it.

In a few more years when the recognition is spot on and the various hurdles Siri struggles with now are nearly eliminated, I think transitioning to a desktop is the logical course.

no. I never use it on my iPhone, and I wouldn't on a Mac. I haven't found its voice rec to be all that hot, and don't really want to look like a tool by talking to my computer. especially when I can type a lot faster.

For me, the only thing I've found Siri useful for is controlling my phone while driving. Without looking at the phone I can text my wife things like "I'm 5 minutes away" and I can do things like "shuffle music" or "play <song>" etc. For that specific set of tasks, I give big ups to Siri, because I'm sure as shit not going to be able to do those things on screen while driving.

For that reason, I have no use for it on OS X. I'm not going to be using OS X while driving.

That said, I've no problem with them taking the existing tech and dropping it into OS X if it's going to be appreciated by some set of users.

I tried speaking into my mouse to get the computer to put up some complicated theories I had for some new materials, but it just wouldn't work. "Computer! Computer?" I said. I even tried using the little dongle that looked like a mike. No joy.

Finally I tried the keyboard. That seemed to work, but ugh. How quaint.

Usually I have no use for Siri whatsoever, but you've caught me on a rare day when I actually used it. I asked it to find the nearest post office. Siri itself worked fine, but Apple Maps let it down; it failed to find the three nearest post offices.

Going to the post office website and entering my postcode gave me the correct result. Not as convenient, but neither is travelling twice as far as I really need to, to post a parcel.

Edit - I just tried searching for 'post office' in Apple Maps directly, and it found the nearest post office no problem. So something is screwy with Siri.

This is a good discussion, but the poll has the same problem all online polls (and telephone polls) do. How do we know that everyone who voted even has an iPhone or Mac, or is planning on getting one? That makes the poll numbers rather invalid.

no. I never use it on my iPhone, and I wouldn't on a Mac. I haven't found its voice rec to be all that hot, and don't really want to look like a tool by talking to my computer. especially when I can type a lot faster.

If you can type faster than you speak, please reveal me your technique

Wow. I'm amazed by the poll. It sounds like people actually use Siri. The only thing I've ever found it useful for is to make my children laugh at how incredibly poor it is at understanding what you say. I thought it was only included in iOS as a joke.

I wrote a paper about voice recognition back in 1990. Spent some time at CMU in their labs and did development work on specific vocabulary systems, primarily for medical applications during that time.

I used the phrase 'Star Trek Syndrome' to describe the consumer expectation of voice driven systems because of exposure to ST, SW, and the like.

The love/hate of Siri, Ford Sync, UVO, and so on is shaped by that cultural bias. That doesn't mean you should blame Gene Roddenberry instead of Apple if Siri pukes up nonsense, but it may definitely be why you're pissed.

I've been helping a friend of mine who had a stroke and who now has difficulty doing common tasks on his Mac, even when using voice input. He just got an iPhone and loves Siri. I'm hoping that Siri will improve the utility of voice input on his Mac.

no. I never use it on my iPhone, and I wouldn't on a Mac. I haven't found its voice rec to be all that hot, and don't really want to look like a tool by talking to my computer. especially when I can type a lot faster.

If you can type faster than you speak, please reveal me your technique

You don't actually need to type that fast. I only type about 40 wpm - not nearly enough to make it in the typing pool, but fast enough to get even moderately long documents out. I find that I can think better using the keyboard because I'm not babbling at 100 wpm or so.

Siri's accuracy is a joke, way too many errors to make it useful for dictation and even frustrating for command work. The Enterprise version of Dragon Dictate, however, is scary accurate. I was playing with it last night. Even without much training I was getting acceptable medical dictation out of the system using a cheapo Plantronics mic in a crowded nurses station.

That's the kind of performance that Siri needs to get before it really can take over for the fingers.

no. I never use it on my iPhone, and I wouldn't on a Mac. I haven't found its voice rec to be all that hot, and don't really want to look like a tool by talking to my computer. especially when I can type a lot faster.

If you can type faster than you speak, please reveal me your technique

Not looking at the keyboard and doing hunt and pick? It's called blind typing, your keyboard was designed for it.